


Into the Valley of Death

by yaminogemu



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Family Bonding, Family Feels, Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation Spoilers, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Stream of Consciousness, Suicidal Thoughts, no beta readers we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 21:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19894954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaminogemu/pseuds/yaminogemu
Summary: Being surrounded by no less than eight siblings is a little unnerving. She loves them all dearly, of course, in a way settled into her very bones. She would move the heavens for any of them. She would gather an army, endure their hatred, even let herself be consumed by the curse of death, if it meant that they would be safe. Her love for them is as strong as it is, in the case of her Hoshidan family, entirely new.What it is not, yet, is comfortable.*the suicidal thoughts tag is only in reference to when, in revelation, corrin almost triggers valla's curse to convince everyone to go into the canyon





	Into the Valley of Death

**Author's Note:**

> the violence tag probably isn't necessary, but i stuck it in there just in case it bothers anyone.
> 
> also most of this is just an excuse for takumi and corrin to become friends, because i'm extremely biased and he's my favorite fates character

The thing is - she's not used to it, exactly, having siblings.  
  
She's had amnesia more often than any reasonably adjusted person probably should. Although she retains and remembers more information since she started regularly using her dragonstone, the memories of her childhood seem far away, almost like a dream. Even despite her foggy memories, those of her siblings are few compared to those of Jakob, Flora, Felicia, Gunter, or even Silas.  
  
Not that it's their fault. It's easy to spend more time with the people who live their days alongside her, rather than the family whose home lies across the country, only visiting when time (read: Father) allows.  
  
As it were, now being surrounded by no less than eight siblings is a little unnerving. She loves them all dearly, of course, in a way settled into her very bones. She would move the heavens for any of them. She would gather an army, endure their hatred, even let herself be consumed by the curse of death, if it meant that they would be safe. Her love for them is as strong as it is, in the case of her Hoshidan family, entirely new.  
  
What it is not, yet, is comfortable.  
  
At first, with Sakura, it's easy. She reminds Corrin so strongly of Elise, and she quietly mourns the time she and each of her little sisters spent growing up locked away from each other.  
  
Corrin knows what it's like to be young, unsure, and desperately trying to reassure yourself that you're on the right track. Honestly, she hasn't outgrown that phase as much as she wished. Sakura is the first sibling to join her army, the first to believe in her and show her unwavering support since Azura stood beside her on that fateful first battlefield. Once safely out of the fort, Sakura and a handful of new allies on her heels, she feels such an overwhelming sense of relief that all she can do is pull her little sister into a hug.  
  
She makes what Corrin can only describe as a squeaking noise, but after a moment holds her just as tightly.  
  
"Thank you for trusting me, Sakura. I won't let you down," she promises lowly, aware that she is probably causing a scene but too relieved to much care.  
  
"O-Of course!" She exclaims as Corrin releases her, a little flustered at her outburst. "You're fa-family!"  
  
Sakura becomes her own personal ray of hope. Azura, and Kaze for that matter, make it sound as if Corrin is the shining beacon of their growing entourage; that might be true, but not to Corrin. Her new little sister is sweet, almost unbearably so, and with Azura and Sakura on either side of her during each skirmish, ready to pick her back up should she fall, she feels like she can do anything.  
  
Takumi comes second, and if there were a way to describe the polar opposite of the feeling of easy affection that Sakura brought, it can only be Takumi.  
  
She wants, wants so desperately, to meet his approval. If she had favorite soldiers (which she absolutely doesn't), Takumi would quickly become of them. He's fast, accurate, and wields a bow of devastating power. Corrin sends a silent prayer of thanks when she first sees him in battle, thanking whoever listening that he's on their side. Sakura is a balm of comfort, but Takumi is someone with strength she can depend on. As much as she is ready and willing to protect her brother, she also knows that he doesn't need it. He relieves a burden from her, but simotaneously (and unintentionally) adds another.  
  
She's aware that he's a prickly person, to put it lightly, but at this point she's halfway convinced that he truly does hate her. He ignores her when possible, and speaks in clipped sentences when forced. She's resorted to essentially begging him for archery lessons, which turn out to be even more of a disaster. She sees how he acts with Sakura, and is suddenly very aware that, to them, she is a stranger. They've grown up together, lived their whole lives together, and here she is, working her way into their family and forcing them to fight their own country.  
  
She's somewhat aware that she's being irrational, but it's hard not to falter in the face of the overwhelming distrust her own brother has for her.  
  
\---  
  
He goes with her to aid a village under attack. Usually she ends up far from him on the battlefield. Besides the fact that she assumes he would find teaming up with her distasteful, she's also aware spreading wielders of the powerful divine weapons out across the team is an advantage she relies on.  
  
This time is different. She stands in front of him, shielding him from a direct attack from a Faceless. A flash of blue streaks by her head, then another. The faceless falls, and another takes it's place.  
  
She's panting, she realizes. She tries to regulate her breathing, places an unsteady hand on her stomach in an attempt to calm herself.  
  
"Don't lose it now, o leader," Takumi bites out from behind her, "there are more coming."  
  
Kaze is somewhere to her left, protecting the young girl they came across. She hears the now familar whiz of metal whipping through the air, then striking true, into flesh.  
  
More blue streaks. It's closer, now.  
  
"Hey, are you bleeding?" Takumi's voice comes again, sounding further away than before. She is, she realizes. Warmth seeps into her fingers clutching her stomach.  
  
She's out of vulneraries. She straightens, sheathing Yato and bringing out her dragonstone.  
  
\---  
  
A part of her relishes tearing through the Faceless. She feels larger than life in her other form, powerful in a way wholly unknown to her before. She spears through their bodies with her horns, their strength far less threatening in the face of her might. Her tail whips around to catch another, one that had been heading toward Takumi while she was seemingly distracted. She is far less merciful with that one, slicing through his throat with her claws and leaving him to bleed, spraying into the air like some kind of ungodly fountain.  
  
She rips, tears, and destroys the enemy until her companions meet her in the town center. Only then does she release her dragon form and return to herself.  
  
She stumbles, at first, unaccustomed to her smaller size. She feels a brief touch, taken away as soon as it's given. She turns to see Takumi, apparently having stayed with her during her rampage.  
  
He opens his mouth, yet closes it just as quickly. The expression he wears is new to her, but rather than figure out what kind of disdain he wants to share with her today, she turns to address the girl Kaze has brought to the group.  
  
Later, back at their base, she sits on the bed in her quarters, gingerly applying a vulnerary to the gash across her ribs. Three knocks sound from the door, and she calls out.  
  
"Who is it?"  
  
"Takumi." Is the only reply, and she startles visibly.  
  
After a pause, she replies. "Come in."  
  
He does, but refuses her offer to sit. She shrugs and goes back to treating her wound. Silence reigns over the room, ignored by Corrin for the most part but causing a palpable tension in Takumi. Finally, withholding a sigh, she looks at him once more.  
  
"Is there something I can do for you, brother?"  
  
Takumi stiffens. Corrin mentally prepares herself for a minor tirade.  
  
"Are you okay?"  
  
Oh.  
  
She blinks a few times before a slow smile spreads accross her face. Takumi audibly huffs in annoyance as she does so, but doesn't say any more.  
  
"I'm fine, Takumi, thank you." She responds warmly, relaxing in the presence of her brother for the first time in what seems like forever.  
  
He nods, then leaves her room almost immediately. The door slams shut just a little too loudly for this hour of night, and she can't stop the sudden laugh that bubbles from her chest. He hadn't even said goodbye.  
  
\---  
  
She loves them, she loves all of them. She watches Camilla across the newly frozen tundra and she aches for her sister, who has never shown her anything but adoration. Heart in her throat, she claws her way to Camilla, hoping she can reason with her as she did Sakura, as she did Takumi.  
  
But, then again, neither of them were actively trying to kill her at the time.  
  
\---  
  
Camilla clings to her, invades her space, and inserts herself back into Corrin's life, by force if necessary. It isn't like what she sees between Takumi and Sakura, it feels like something more and less at the same time. She loves Camilla, and loves the doting she lavishes on her, but a small part of her whispers that Camilla doesn't care for her this much, not really. That she's an idol, a puppet, something for Camilla to tend to and hold until she returns to their other siblings. Until she can return to Elise, the true guiding star in her Nohrian family's lives, and love someone who has earned it.  
  
She mercilessly squashes that voice on it's every appearance, but it returns nonetheless.  
  
Elise returns to her, and for a moment, Corrin thinks that she was right. She wasn't wholly comfortable with all of Camilla's attentions before, but now that Elise has joined and her time with Camilla has suddenly lessened, she finds that she misses it. Elise is easy to love, and Camilla's new place at her side takes her away from Corrin's.  
  
She knows, logically, that this doesn't mean anything. She loves Elise too, after all, and a warrior like Camilla by Elise's side will ensure that nothing happens to her. She's more useful there than by Corrin, who by all accounts is capable of mass destruction.  
  
She knows this, tells herself this, but it still aches when she sees Elise and Camilla sitting in the grass, taking turns braiding each other's hair, a look of peace on Camilla's face that Corrin has never been able to bring her.  
  
Anything, she would do anything for them. But these little things, she stumbles through. She can't figure out how to give them the comfort of family.  
  
\---  
  
She finds Takumi awake late one night, sitting out beneath this realm's stars, so different from the night sky in their real world.  
  
She sits beside him quietly and, although she hopes he won't, waits for him to leave. In what is perhaps a small miracle, he stays. They sit together, looking up at the surrounding darkness, the only sounds from the gentle current of the canals surrounding them. She feels weightless, buoyant, awake for so long sorting through her mess of thoughts and plans that reality seems distinctly less real.  
  
The longer Takumi stays with their army, the more fiercely she loves him, wants to protect him. He's gruff, yet unbearably sweet to Sakura; he's rude, yet compassionate to those he cares for. She feels like an outsider, worn down, trying to become simply friends with someone she would die for.  
  
After several moments, she breaks their silence in a low voice.  
  
"If I tell you something, would you promise not to judge me too harshly for it?"  
  
She doesn't look at him, even when she can feel that he's turned to look at her. She keeps her eyes firmly locked on the night sky.  
  
There must be something in her voice, or her expression, or something, because he doesn't reply with a scathing remark. After a moment he simply agrees.  
  
"All right."  
  
She brings her knees to her chest, feeling suddenly vulnerable. She tries to sort her thoughts for a moment, jumbled and disoriented as she may currently be, then ultimately decides to come out with it.  
  
"I know you don't like me," she starts softly, "and I know to you, there's good reason not to. Honestly, I dont really blame you."  
  
She stops for a moment, lost in the memories of another day, what seems like a lifetime ago.  
  
"When you told me to go, after... after I first transformed," and how easy it was, to remember that day as the day she discovered the dragon inside her, and not the day she lost her mother, "I agreed with you, you know."  
  
Takumi's sudden intake of breath is sharp, audible.  
  
She closes her eyes, rests her head on her knees. Her voice drops to almost a whisper, like she's sharing a secret, which she supposes she is.  
  
"I couldn't believe what I'd caused. It was my sword, my fault it was even in the city, let alone right beside Mother. I'd destroyed everything, and when you said that, I wanted nothing more than to run."  
  
The open air smells lovely to her: fresh, clean, and so very different from the castle fortress she spent most of her life in.  
  
"I know you don't like me." She repeats.  
  
"If I were you, I don't know if I'd even like me. But..." she trails off, wondering if he would even believe her if she spoke her mind, her heart.  
  
"I love my family. I love you, Takumi." She says firmly. "It's okay if you never like me. It's okay if you don't believe me, too.  
  
"I love you very much, little brother, and if you'll stay by my side, then we can take on anything."  
  
She feels awkward and exposed. She opens her eyes, nearly about to leave him alone once more, when he replies.  
  
"Why would you love me? We hardly speak more than a few sentences to each other." He scoffs.  
  
She frowns. "You're a good man, Takumi, and a good brother to Sakura."  
  
Takumi shifts at that, seemingly uncomfortable.  
  
"And, in case you hadn't noticed, I rely on you."  
  
"You do?"  
  
She spluttered, more confused than she had been in... well. Days, really, but her life wasn't straightforward most of the time.  
  
"Of course! Takumi, you're the best archer in our army, and one of the precious few people I can trust to lead when I can't." She shakes her head. "Did you truly not realize?"  
  
He's silent for a few moments, turning it over in his head.  
  
"I didn't, actually." He says quietly, more gently that she's ever heard him speak to her.  
  
"Well, now you do." She says, not really knowing how else to respond. She waits a moment, then moves to leave once more.  
  
"I'm sorry if I bothered you, brother." She says a little too formally, still unsure if she's upset Takumi. "Goodnight."  
  
When she's off the ground and walking back to her quarters, she hopes that the answering "goodnight" isn't just wishful thinking.  
  
\---  
  
In one night, everything changes.  
  
They wait before the bottomless canon and she hopes, even as their window of time is steadily ticking away, that she will be enough for her brothers and remaining sister to return to her. She can feel the tension within her army, only briefly eased by Sakura and Elise whispering none-too-softly how pretty the changing skies have become.  
  
Suddenly, movement in the distance. An... army. A strikingly familiar one.  
  
"That's...Hans and a Nohrian army!" She feels winded, sense of growing dread in the pit of her stomach. She doesn't want to face what this could mean.  
  
"Instead of getting Prince Xander's cooperation, we get an assault!" Takumi exclaims from somewhere to her left, and the dread grows.  
  
"I can't believe he would do this!" Camilla's voice is more pleading than Takumi's, but the sentiment is the same.  
  
"This...is your answer, Xander?" She whispers to herself. A burning begins behind her eyes that she tries desperately to blink away.  
  
"Listen to me, Corrin." Azura approaches her and grips her shoulder tightly. "You must stay strong. We can't lose here, or all we've done will have been for nothing."  
  
She nods slowly, eyes trained on the enemy ahead. She flexes her fingers in and out of a fist, trying to center herself once more as soldiers approach. In the end, it's Takumi and Camilla that lash out, defeating a handful of soldiers before a voice calls out.  
  
"Don't get any closer! I won't let you lay a finger on my sister!"  
  
Ryoma. Ryoma and Hinoka, Ryoma and Hinoka, Ryoma and Hinoka! She can hardly register what they say to her beyond the sudden ringing in her ears.  
  
"You all came!" She gasps out. She feels Azura's hand tighten at her shoulder.  
  
New retainers, Hinoka's, introduce themselves. Her big sister smiles at her, and she feels weightless in her relief.  
  
Sakura practically launches herself at Hinoka, pegasus be damned, and is welcomed with open arms.  
  
Hinoka laughs. Corrin suddenly realizes that she's never heard her laugh before, not like this.  
  
"There's still a battle to win, little sister." She says gently, giving Sakura a final squeeze that, by the looks of it, knocks the wind out of the younger girl.  
  
"I-I can fight, n-now!" She exclaims, flustered, released by Hinoka to stand beside her pegasus. "I've been tr-training, with Takumi, and C-Corrin says that I'm an a-a-asset!"  
  
Hinoka visibly hesitates, looking to Corrin and then back to Sakura. "If that's what Corrin says, then I'm sure you are." She says with a smile a little more strained than before.  
  
"I'll protect you, and you soften them up for me, right?"  
  
"R-right!"  
  
That battle feels different, somehow. Maybe it's because of Hans. Although she likes to think of herself incapable of hatred, she thinks that if any man brought her close to the feeling, it was Hans. He's become a figurehead for her, a pawn of her false father, the knowing accomplice to her mother's death.  
  
She tears through the enemy, Hana and Kaze at her back. Shurikens whiz by what passes for her head in dragon form. Hana darts out from behind her, striking as quickly as she is deadly. Corrin maneuvers around the both of them, tail avoiding the other soldiers with an ease that took significant practice to gain, and cuts the enemy to pieces.  
  
\---  
  
Hans is dead. Hans is dead and she wants, needs, just a bit of privacy to let out a cry of relief. What she gets, however, is yet another army looming on the horizion.  
  
"Do we need to retreat and regroup?" She asks Azura, still panting from the rush of battle.  
  
"I don't think we can afford to flee." She answers, as always, ready at Corrin's side when she needs her. "If we run away, we may not be able to fight our way back to the Bottomless Canyon..."  
  
"Then our only choice is to stay and fight!" She stands straighter, gripping Yato tightly. "But are we digging our own graves here? This can't be how everything ends. We've come so far..."  
  
Her family has only just come back to her, she couldn't bear to lose any of them.  
  
"Don't worry, Corrin. We'll be all right." Ryoma's voice brings her out of her slightly panicked reverie. He apparently sees her hesitation, and continues.  
  
"Listen, Corrin. I didn't come all this way just to die or turn tail and run. Everyone here has come to fight with you because they believe in you. Including me."  
  
And gods, don't they? She can hardly believe the loyalty her friends and allies have shown her, without even knowing what they are truly fighting against.  
  
"Cast off your worries. No matter how dire things look, you must fight on. The Yato chose you to carry it. I know you can do this."  
  
She takes a deep breath. She can do this. None of her family will die tonight, none of her allies will die tonight. She won't allow them to. Together, they can defeat Iago and his army.  
  
"Thank you, Ryoma."  
  
She feels the familar foreboding feeling of being severely outnumbered, something she hasn't felt since their army was in it's infancy. She's traded her dragonstone for Yato. She weaves around enemy attacks and hits with an accuracy that makes her overwhelmingly thankful for Xander's lessons. Takumi is behind her this time, with Sakura to her left. Both of their arrows fly into the enemies ahead of her, and one falls at her feet before she even hits it.  
  
The problem is, two more take his place.  
  
"How many soldiers can there possibly be?" She's almost exasperated. She hears Takumi reply, but can't understand what he says over the cacophony of metal striking metal.  
  
Someone shouts into he distance, and she perks up instinctively when she hears her name.  
  
"Don't worry, Corrin! We'll get you through this."  
  
She knows that voice, and she knows the voice following it, too.  
  
"Jeez, you really can't get anything done without help, can you?"  
  
Xander! Leo!  
  
"We fight together, Corrin." Her brother shouts, making his way to her with Leo trailing behind him. The pair of them cut down every enemy in their path. "I'm sorry it took us this long to join you."  
  
"Iago's forces will prove no match for me. I'll crush them in the blink of an eye." Leo tells her once they're closer. It takes all of her willpower to focus on the soldiers still advancing toward her, instead of bundling her little brother in a crushing hug. "I've never liked his illusory magic... It will be a pleasure to remove him permanently from the Nohrian army."  
  
"So, his forces didn't come here on your orders." She's so, so relieved.  
  
But -  
  
"But I still don't get it. What made you change your mind?" She can't look at Xander's directly as she speaks, currently knocking a swordsman off his feet.  
  
"We'll talk more later, Corrin." Xander promises. "We don't have much time left before the skies change. We have to combine our strength and clear the way to victory!"  
  
"... All right!" She smiles toothily and, by the way the soldiers in front of her hesitate, she knows that her sharp incisors are on full display.  
  
Their enemies don't stand a chance.  
  
\---  
  
Niles, Odin, Peri, and Laslow. More allies, more friendships waiting to happen. Selena is the first from Corrin's army to approach the new retainers, and promptly punches the one called Laslow's arm.  
  
"Hey! What was that for!"  
  
"It took you long enough!" She shouted. Corrin would be concerned, if not for the blinding grin split across each of their faces.  
  
She finds Xander and Leo reunited with Camilla and Elise, the latter quite literally jumping for joy.  
  
"My goodness, Elise, do you really need to bounce around like that?" Camilla coos, a steadying hand on her sister's shoulder. "Though I'm happy to see our wonderful brothers as well. Now all four of us are together, just like the Hoshidan brothers and sisters."  
  
A squabble breaks out between Takumi, Leo, and Hinoka. Corrin should find it petty at best and concerning at worst, but in all honesty she can't stop the sudden rush of affection she feels for the people in front of her.  
  
Leo apologizes. Apologizes. For calling her traitor, as if he was unreasonable to distrust someone who couldn't back up any of her wild accusations.  
  
"If I had trusted you sooner, we would be in a better situation now."  
  
Corrin shakes her head. She wants to reach out to him, to be able to casually reassure him with a hand on his arm. She wants to be able to show him how much he means to her, how much all of them mean to her, and how unthinkable it is for her to ever hold his distrust of her against him.  
  
"You don't need to apologize." She assures him. "Just having your trust now means more to me than you know."  
  
They haven't always been the closest of siblings, but she thinks she knows him well enough to tell when he looks just the slightest bit relieved.  
  
Her two older brothers agree to a truce. She didn't dare hope for as much, but she can't stop herself from cheering.  
  
"Ryoma and Prince Xander—working together. I never thought I'd see it." Takumi echoes her thoughts. When she turns to him, he's smiling slightly.  
  
"Just make sure you don't slow us down, Hoshidans." Leo scoffs.  
  
"You don't seem to share your brother's open mind." Hinoka is visibly annoyed. Her pegasus stomps it's hooves, as if sensing it's rider's distress.  
  
"I apologize for Leo—he bears you no ill will. Don't let it worry you. We can't have you sully your pretty face with a frown." Camilla pinches Hinoka's cheek.  
  
Hinoka immediately smacks her hand away, but at least she doesn't seem as annoyed. Blushing like mad and using her own pegasus as a barrier between herself and Camilla, sure, but not annoyed.  
  
"Isn't this wonderful, Corrin?" Azura whispers to her, finding her hand in the relative dark of the forest and squeezing it gently.  
  
Corrin attempts to swallow past the sudden lump in her throat. Azura's right. She would've cherished them even if none of them chose to join her on her mission, but instead they all did. She laughs in almost hysterical disbelief.  
  
"It is." She agrees, squeezing Azura's hand back.  
  
\---  
  
"Corrin," Takumi visibly struggles to remain calm and reasonable, "it's called the Bottomless Canyon. By definition, we can't reach the bottom. You're asking us to kill ourselves!"  
  
Corrin closes her eyes and grips the rope bridge behind her tightly. She is viscerally aware of how difficult it is to explain, how to convince her siblings to follow her without actually telling them anything.  
  
She doesn't know if she can do it, actually.  
  
"Lady Corrin, you were prepared for them to doubt you, yes?"  
  
"Yes, Gunter." She agrees. They weren't as naive as she had been when Azura told her to jump. She didn't think they would be, really, but it's a little hard to admit the truth if it also means her own impending death.  
  
"I was prepared for this. I'm sorry I haven't been able to tell you the whole truth up until now. I'm certain that you'll be willing to jump once you know why I've been fighting."  
  
"Corrin!" Azura says sharply, immediately attracting the attention of all nine royals. "What are you saying? You can't tell them everything here. If you do, the curse... "  
  
She trails off in horror, finally realizing what Corrin intends to do.  
  
"What curse?" Xander demands. "What is she talking about?"  
  
Corrin's hands are shaking, she realizes. It seems she is unable to face death without being unspeakably terrified. She wants desperately to be able to stay, but she knows they can't believe her.  
  
She would give anything for them. Her life, if it means they are safe.  
  
"If I speak the truth here, and not down below, a curse will trigger and I'll..."  
  
Die.  
  
"...vanish." She finishes, looking up at her brother with determination. He's confused, she can tell, but distressed by her explanation regardless.  
  
"But if that's the only way to convince everyone to jump, then I have to do it." Her eyes flicker over her siblings as she speaks, each varying degrees of horrified. "I'm counting on all of you to finish what I've started once I'm gone."  
  
"Corrin!" Azura exclaims again, desperate this time. "You can't."  
  
Corrin can't look at her. She settles her gaze on the horizon. "Will you promise?"  
  
It's not Xander who answers, but Ryoma. "I understand why you ask, but I refuse."  
  
Before Corrin can respond beyond an involuntary noise of protest, Xander agrees.  
  
"Likewise. How can you possibly expect us to agree to that?"  
  
He sounds baffled. She cringes into herself a bit, trying to plan a different route to convince them. "But why?"  
  
"Ya big goofball!" A new voice says, and Corrin is visibly startled. She had almost forgotten about the army behind them, listening intently to their conversation. Scarlet continues. "You really can't figure out what your big brothers are telling you? They want you to order them to jump off the bridge—not ask nicely."  
  
"You - what?" She looks toward her siblings once more.  
  
"Darling, we would follow you anywhere!" Camilla exclaims, bringing Corrin into a crushing hug. Well, she thought as Camilla stroked her hair, she should've probably expected this reaction from her elder sister after suggesting what was essentially suicide.  
  
Her agreement, she wasn't expecting.  
  
"Really?" Corrin asked weakly.  
  
"We've decided to trust you, no matter what." Ryoma assures her. "Now you need to trust us—trust that we will follow your orders."  
  
"Exactly." Xander once more agrees with Ryoma, and isn't this one hell of a day already. "If we had any doubt about you, we would never have come here."  
  
"You're our little sister." Ryoma continues and gods, how often had she used the same justification for each of them? They were her family. "We wouldn't turn our backs on you now."  
  
"Sure, jump into a canyon. Why not?" Takumi rolls his eyes but, once he notices her looking at him, shoots her a nervous smile.  
  
"We trust you, big sister!" Elise shouts, voice sounding suspiciously watery, and promptly tackles Corrin with a hug. With both Camilla and Elise clinging to her, she feels a slow but pleasant warmth spread through her.  
  
Azura takes her hand once more and when Corrin turns to her, she has a tense smile.  
  
"Corrin, we have to go, now. Something's happening, I can feel it."  
  
Her family follows her into the unknown.  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> why aren't there more fics about corrin having family bonding time? this is a CRIME
> 
> also please do mention any grammatical mistakes in the comments! i've read it over, but it was also about 4 AM when i started it so
> 
> JUNE 2020 EDIT i was gonna finish more chapters but now im not so here we are


End file.
